The potential to be a murderer
by Greghero
Summary: What if Kirito wasn't really the good guy but a mass murderer? The leader of the mass murderers in SAO to be exact, Poh! This cant be right, right? But what about the eye witnesses that claim it to be so? What really happened inside that game? Could Kirito be 2 people at the same time? Psychologist Nicole Verman's job is to shed light in this case and the teenager's mind!OOC Kirito
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

 **Nicole POV**

I walked inside the conference room where everyone was taking their seats. The chief of the police department, Mr. Subaru, advised them to stay quiet and take notes as time for questions would be given after the lecture.

I took my position on the second central row. I waited while the brightness in the room was slowly lowered and an elderly man, Dr. Shikaku, took the stand. He had pure white, short hair with a small gap at the top of his head. He had light wrinkles forming in his forehead and glasses. All around he looked like the stereotypical university lector, which was a bit out of place in the police building. He coughed, to clear his throat and begun speaking.

'Kazuto Kirigaya!' He started and an image of a black haired boy, no older than eight, was projected behind him. 'A simple, common name for a teenage boy.'

'Externally the said boy had nothing that made him stand out. He was mediocre at school, he was of average height, and he even had black hair.' His voice was very dry and almost bored in sharp contrast to the way he continued.

'Certainly he was a bit better than average when his software engineering, kendo and gaming skills were concerned but he didn't even _truly_ stand out in any of the above.' He said the way a person would list the clues of a particularly intriguing riddle. 'Well, maybe he stood out a bit in the most useless of the three, the gaming department that is.' He said in a very amused tone which earned some slight laughter.

'He was after all the best player through the 1000 beta-testers in the first game of the new genre, Sword Art Online. But the inside the boy was a bit more… _troubling_.' His tone started getting grim

'The boy had certain repressed killing tendencies. The said killing tendencies started developing during his kendo training from his grandfather 4 years ago, according to his cousin,' The image changed to a kendo match. The winner stood over his opponent with his broken sword under his neck while the opponent seemed terrified. 'In this picture had broken his wooden sword on a defeated athlete in the finals of the nationals. He was ofcourse banned from championships of such kind but the fact still remains. The boiling point though came three years ago inside the famous, or rather infamous, Sword Art Online incident.'

 _Arbitrary conclusions. Since when do we trust uneducated, teenage civilians for such deductions?_

'He is the person with one of the highest estimated kill account in the whole planet' He said and the hesitated. 'And here lies the problem.' He said and everyone in the room stopped breathing. They knew the general image but the details were just now being made known to the public. The server company had been quite secretive about this.

'We are unable to link him directly to the murders as there are detailed documents of the actions of the players that were made public once the game was cleared but.. his kill count is zero.' The reporters and psychologists inside the room were obviously shaken by this revelation. They obviously struggled with the idea of voicing the question in everyone's minds but then they looked at the gruff chief who seemed to dare them to do just that and thought twice about it. In the end a voice was heard from the back. A man.

'I am sorry but… what is the incriminating evidence then?' Asked the man.

I cringed. I hated amateurs. And especially impatient amateurs. What did that guy think would be the next things he would say? The weather?

All eyes turned to the new voice except mine who turned to Subaru. The man looked ready to take action and kick the man out but the doctor mouthed him something and he stood back. He then turned back to the crowd whose attention was back to the doctor.

'There are eye-witnesses.' He said. 'Actually way too many of them to count! In any other case he would have been sentenced to multiple life times or worse but this would be a… special case.' He worded very carefully. 'He claims that there could be other people with his features or glitch that made other people look like him. Then he talked about the facts. His account as I said has a zero kill count. And the worst part is that the names don't fit. The eye witnesses talk about a person called Poh while his alias was Kirito. Also the said Poh does not seem to have a real life equivelant according to the files. He was inside the game but no one that woke up had the nickname Poh!' Finished the Doctor incredulously. 'At present there is a stalemate in the court about what is true. Truth be told, he makes a solid case and even cannot be certain.' He said and the lights turned back up. 'If you have any questions please voice them and…'

I shut him out at that. I had all the data I wanted. The rest I would get from the source. I was, after all, the psychologist chosen by the ministry of justice to shed some light into this case. I had to study this case today so I would be ready tomorrow when I faced him.

I exited the station and turned on the engine of my car.

'Let's see now. What's your story _Kirito?_ '


	2. Preparation

**Preparation**

The 6a.m. alarm rang in vain as I had barely slept that night.

The morning sun found me analyzing my notes about the circumstances, possibilities and background of my patient. Even if I hadn't my nerves were ragged and sleep wouldn't come to me.

Every single channel, local or international, seemed to talk exclusively about the end of the death game with a heavy emphasis on the king pin of the criminal organization that was developed and thrived inside the said game. Great attention was also given to me as the psychologist that will have to psychoanalyze him.

My job, ofcourse, wasn't to get a confession out of him, far from it, as even if he did confess everything to the last detail I wouldn't be able to officially disclose in court anything of this kind without making the confession unusable and rendering my career finished.

No, my job was to one, certify if he is a mentally ill patient and should be treated as such, and two, if certain proof is revealed from his confession as even though it can't be used if certain evidence could be found through it then I could give the information to the police.

For example the murderer says I killed her and buried her there. The psychologist can't use the part that said he killed her but he can tell the police where the body is buried so they can use any new evidence they find from the body.

I tidied up the mess of papers that was my bed and arranged them into two folders which I then closed and positioned in my bag. I made a cup of coffee which I leisurely drank on my balcony while looking at the rising sun.

I still had 2 hours up until the arranged appointment but the traffic at that hour could be hellish so I decided to get ready.

I opened my wardrobe. I put on a pair of grey pants with a matching jacket and a white t-shirt underneath. I looked myself in the full body mirror of my room.

 _Formal yet classy!_ I decided with an internal grin.

By most people's standards I was knock out gorgeous! My silky smooth black hair flowed down to her waist while my bright blue eyes complemented ny high cheekbones. I was fairly tall like a model and perfectly proportioned.

Sadly, us is the case with many psychiatrists, I wasn't truly in touch with my feelings so independently of my looks I never had a good enough relationship. I didn't know if I should feel blessed for my looks or resentful to myself for my lack of ability to use them.

I shook my head to empty my thoughts of these things. I needed to be 100% into what I was doing today. My career could go either rocket high or dirt low within the next week and honestly I wasn't as stressed as excited. I liked it when the stakes were high.

I got out of my home and into my car and started the ride. I turned on my radio which was playing "psycho killer" by the doors. I chuckled.

 _Fitting!_ I thought as the music faded into the background for the next hour, inside which I reached the Matsumoto juvenile prison. I went inside and the luxury that Japanese prisons had never ceased to amaze me.

Surrounded by lush greenery with a tranquil silence hanging in the air, it's easy to forget you're standing inside a juvenile correctional facility in western Tokyo — at least until you notice the walls surrounding the property that completely shut the center off from the outside world.

I was from America and in all honesty I had never before been in Japan but my mother was Japanese so I had a mediocre grasp on the language. I hoped it would be enough to talk in an acceptable level with my patient.

I went to the waiting room where a bulky man with a jet black suit and a red tie waited me on my seat. When he saw me he walked towards me in slow yet determined motions.

'Would you be Mrs. Nicole Verman?' Asked the man in lightly accented English while extending his hand in form of a handshake. I had noticed that independently of the grasp a person from the east had on the language a discernible accent was still found. No matter how many times I traced this I still found it peculiar. I returned the gesture by grabbing his hand and shaking it.

'Nicole Verman at your service!' I said with a polite smile forming on my lips, more for reasons of diplomacy rather than anything else. The man returned the smile.

'We have been expecting you! Please, follow me.' He said and gestured towards the barred door that led to the cells.

He gave a nod towards the gate keeper through the glass and he opened the door. He led me deeper and deeper into the corridor when I started feeling a difference. The further inside I got the worse the quality of… well everything, became. The air got stale, the rooms, which I could see through the small barred windows at the top of the doors, became smaller and dirtier. The walls weren't so finely painted, guards started showing up more often after every corner and there were at least three cameras on the walls of every corridor. Curiosity got the better of me.

'I am sorry but why is the security so tight?' I asked but was greeted with silence. When I was ready to repeat herself in the thought that the man in front of me hadn't heard the question he answered, choosing his words very carefully.

'This is the… VIP cells, per say. Here are the most dangerous and most important juvenile criminals this country had the displeasure of creating. Now even for this part the security is stricter than usual but when so much attention is turned towards us I do believe it is justified.' He said in an official, almost rehearsed tone. I briefly wondered if he had rehearsed answers for every possible question I had but then I found out that I didn't really care.

They reached one last door that looked a lot like it came from a pressure stabilization door from sci-fi movies.

'This' The man begun. 'Is the interrogation chamber. Inside here is Kazuto Kirigaya, all bound in shackles. You have no reason to be afraid, I have personally made it so that he can't move anything else except his head, so as long as you stay out of biting range you should be fine.' He said with humor but his face betrayed he didn't feel all that happy.

'Thank you very much officer…'

'Shinkawa.' He said politely

'Thank you very much, officer Shinkawa. Now could you please open the door?' I asked

'Certainly!' He said and started typing a password that he covered from me through his bulky frame. He then scanned his eyes and completed a fingertip scan before the door made a sound of air getting depressurized and opened slightly. The officer grabbed it and pulled it open revealing a white room with a jet black table in the center. On one end sat a person in a white strait-jacket with his head hang forward, his slightly long black hair covering his face. He had numerous shackles that would make even the most scared person reassured of their safety. Not even an elephant could possibly break those. On the other end was a comfortable, black leather chair where I assumed was my position.

I walked into the room and heard the door shut behind me. A camera activated on the top left and top right corner of the room which I caught with my peripheral vision. I sat on my chair and crossed my legs while knitting my fingers in front of me.

The man, or rather teenager in front of me slowly raised his head. He had black eyes that streamed intelligence and a disarming smile that made you think he was the most innocent person on earth. All around his face could be considered slightly girly but his overall attitude was far from it. If anything he looked like leadership material to me.

'Hello Doctor.' He said in perfect English with a silky smooth voice. 'Nice meeting you. My name is Kazuto Kirigaya and I think we are going to spend a lot of time together inside the next week!'

 **A/N: Hello Greghero here. The past will start being revealed in the next chapter so sorry I leave you at a cliffhanger. As you may have noticed I put an OOC Kirito tag on the description. I think it will be greatly justified so please don't review on that. If you like the idea of Kirito going dark, and don't want to wait for this story to be updated, you can always try my other SAO fanfic "The revenge of the King of Darkness", which is my favorite SAO creation. There Kirito takes revenge on Laughing Coffin instead of leading them but he still goes ruthless murderer in the end. Check it out if you liked this one. Also please review and tell me how you liked the chapter, and as always**

 **Glad to entertain you**


	3. First Session

**First Session**

 **Nicole POV**

This was fairly off-putting!

I had just sat on my chair when he raised his head and with a less than brief examination he had either deducted my nationality or made a spot on blind guess.

Either way I already had enough material to deduct that the person in front of me would not kill a person in the heat of the moment. To be more precise the person in front of me either didn't have heat of the moment times or he had a split personality. If I had to guess I would go with the first one but my job wasn't to guess.

My job was to deduct!

As to how I deducted this it was simple. A teenager who just got out of a, by all means, traumatizing experience, who was then inside the next 2 hours seized, chained and put in isolation except his interrogations in the accuse that he has killed enough people to rival the 9/11.

A person like that would be emotionally broken or his nerves would be in tatters if he didn't have an iron grip on his emotions and even then some signs of psychological stress would be seen by the educated eye.

The person in front of her had none.

No signs in his sleeveless arms of injury because he tried to escape. No signs in his eyes of crying or popped vessels because of anger. No signs or odor of sweating due to stress. No irregular speech patterns. If anything he could speak a language besides his mother tongue so flawlessly that if I had only heard him I would promise he was an American.

No the person in front of me didn't have an iron grip on his negative emotions. For some reason his defenses were such that didn't allow him to produce any negative emotions to speak of!

A rare trait and in any other case very admirable too. But right now the use it was put into was cold-blooded murder so that takes away enough from the admiration factor.

All of the above were thought by me in a maximum of 6 seconds. Certainly more than enough to make the young man misunderstand my calculations with surprise but not enough for him to cut through that. And I intended to keep it that way.

'Interesting!' I broke the silence and formed a trained disarming smile. 'I did not know I would have the pleasure of speaking my mother tongue with you. On the contrary I was stressed for the quality of the communication we would be having.'

Kirito smiled in kind. _He knows the game just as well as me. By the book questions will have no affect apparently!_

'Well I am also pleased to see that my guess of your origin was correct. I am also glad that the person that I will be conversing with until my trial will have a higher intellectual level than the guard.' He said and stole a glance towards the door. I purposefully widened my smile a bit to show that I acknowledged the joke but in a way that would not be seen by the cameras and would give the illusion to the teen that he was breaking through my shields.

 _As if…_

'So may I start with the necessary formalities Mr. Kirigaya?' I asked. The cameras above my head recorded tapes that were archived inside the camera. No person from the outside could see inside this room. But those recordings could be shown to the outer world in the case that the patient, in this case Kazuto, gave his written permission. In that case, were I to fail my objectives, any mistakes I may have made would be shown against me in court.

In other words, I just covered my bases.

'Certainly Madam.' He said and smiled to her formally and maturely.

 _Rare levels of maturity in a young age. Signs of some kind of trauma that forced him to mature in a faster manner. More than likely for the trauma to have happened inside the game. Cannot be taken as fact. Shall be investigated at a later date._ I mentally noted while opening my folder where I wrote my new deductions in short.

I would sort through all the possible theories that I had made the day before when I was at my home. Right now I would get as many information as I could from the source.

'Is your name Kazuto Kirigaya?' I asked

'Yes!' He replied in a polite tone.

'What is your sex?'

'Male!'

'What is your age?'

'I am 17 years old.'

'Good!' I said after I had filled out the necessities. 'Now, anything you wish to say before we officially begin?' I asked more out of habit although I always hoped they would just come out and say that they were guilty.

'Nothing at all Doctor.' He said

'Then let us begin.' I said and I almost started with all the by the book questions again. That wouldn't work. I would have to be a bit more creative. 'How do you feel now that you are out of the game?' I asked after some thought.

A slight tweak in his eyebrow betrayed reserved surprise at the change of pace but I was certain he had calculated the possibility.

'As a matter of fact I expected a warmer welcome.' He said amused. 'I mean I barely had time to will my muscles to work in their atrophied state before I was carried here and left for I don't even know how long.' He said but his tone betrayed no frustration. If anything he seemed to enjoy this hellish predicament.

'Do you know why you are kept here?' I asked

'I have been briefed by the interrogators. Although I would appreciate some more detail. If you have the jurisdiction to disclose it to me would you mind?' He asked

I thought about it and deducted that some pressure coming from the high-stakes that were on the table would probably discourage him from misbehavior.

'You are suspected of multiple murders and facing possible life times for killing people inside the SAO incident under the alias Poh.' I said in a short yet informative presentation.

'How interesting…' Kazuto started 'I lied to you before. My interrogator had told me everything and even more than that. But I wanted to see if you would disclose anything from me or if you would try to make it seem more dramatic. On the contrary you gave an honest presentation of only the facts. How peculiar…' He said and I would be lying if I said I was surprised. I expected some mind games and tests until he thought he had a grasp on my personality.

'So,' I broke the silence that had filled the room 'Were you truly Poh?' I asked. A useless question that would be answered by a straight no regardless of how guilty he was. I asked it to observe his possible tics when lying more than anything else.

'And why would I disclose that information to you, doctor?' He asked playfully. He still had the state of mind of not having to say anything he didn't want. I had no idea of his achievements inside the game but by this alone I was certain enough that he was in one way of a powerful and respected or feared position. One way or another…

'I would say that it is to protect yourself from the court but that would be a lie since I can't disclose anything you say to the court. My job here is to purely detect any and all possible psychological problems you may have.' I half lied emotionlessly.

He had made a mistake. He had given her a way to casually state he could say whatever he wanted inside this room and I couldn't disclose anything. Where I to just present the fact it would make me look suspicious but now it could look like I just happened to mention it.

'Well then doctor I do have something to say' He said and I tilted her head ever so slightly out of curiosity. 'My alias inside the game of Sword Art Online was indeed Poh.' He said and my mind went blank.

Was that a confession? Did he just blurt out he was guilty without getting tricked, or pressured or anything. He had just… said it.

 _Wait_ I thought _all he has admitted by now is that his alias was Poh. That didn't mean he was a murderer or anything of this sort. If I call him out on it he may just recede back to his shell and say that maybe another person had the same name or that just his friends called him that and his nickname in the game was different._

'Would that mean you are the murderer that everyone is searching?' I asked without being able to keep certain grains of anxiousness from creeping into my voice at the possible revelation. In response he smiled cheekily!

'Well Doctor. That is one long story. Are you certain you wish to hear everything that happened inside this game?' He asked but he obviously knew the answer beforehand. I subconsciously frowned a bit at the liking this boy had taken at beating around the bush.

And the worst part was that he was getting to me.

'If you wish to talk about it I would be more than glad to lend you my ear.' I said a little faster than I should to seem impassive.

'Then get comfortable. This is going to be a looooong story of how I got through this game unscathed in a world that you can only live in, in your wildest dreams' He said and finally showed some true emotion by giving her a feral smile. 'And how I enjoyed turning it into a nightmare!'


	4. AN

Hello guys, how is it going?

I have some bad news and some great news.

The bad news first... I am prooooobably not going to update for 4 to 5 months which is directly linked to the great news.

I have this great inspiration that comes to all writers and I will write my very own original book (franchise, fingers crossed). So since I will dedicate all my time and inspiration to this and college I will more than likely not have time for FFs.

Wish me luck and see you again on summer. And a always

Glad to entertain you  
Greghero


	5. Great News

Guys, I have GREAT news.

It is finished, the first book is finished. Now, my dear readers, I want one last favor from you.

I want you all to read it and tell me your oppinion of it before I send it to the author house. If you would be willing to do me this favor then please PM me your email and I will send you the first two arcs.

P.S. This will be in effect until the first of April and as always

Glad to entertain you  
Greghero


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